This, of course, ignores the fact that whips are generally impractical weapons in close combat, unless you like the idea of flicking your own ear every time you crack that whip. In light of this, most whips will be weaponized by adding blades or spikes, making them out of chain link, being electrified or just magic in order to be a more convincing weapon, while maintaining the cool sexiness. Also, they're often employed to instantly tie up an enemy, despite being designed to avoid tangling. Less enthusiastic authors settle upon emphasizing disarming, tripping and choking attacks.

Examples:

Braiger: Isaac "The Razor" Goodnov carries wields a weapon that is a blend of whip, laser and sword.

Eclair from Kiddy Grade. Though she's a cyborg with superhuman strength and is good with guns, one of her trademark attacks is to use her apparently magical lipstick to write her name on the wall and lash her enemies into submission.

Aki Izayoi of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds, when her psychic powers are combined with Black Rose Dragon and Splendid Rose.

A minor Angel in Kidou Tenshi Angelic Layer illegally wielded electric whips. This was the only thing in the series that was illegal, besides disrupting an opponent's control over his or her Angel (as shown in the Fujisaki arc). Rewriting the Layer matrix, Beam Spam, suddenly growing wings, Super Strength due to programming glitch: these things were fine.

The battle the whips were used in was an informal battle. Icchan, the game's creator, still didn't like it.

Louise of Zero no Tsukaima always keeps a riding crop on hand for... controlling... Saito ("Stupid dog!!!"), usually when his Male Gaze gets the better of him. She can't entangle him with it, but it works well for discipline. When that doesn't work, explosive magic is always next.

She also has an actual whip for more extreme measures, such as the time he tried to molest her on her sleep.

Same goes for her older sister, Eleonore. Which happens to make Louse cower in fear.

In the first Sailor Moon anime, Sailor Venus has the "Venus Love-Me Chain" - a magical chain of hearts that's essentially a whip. Sailor Moon R's villainess Calaveras, Venus' sort-of Evil Counterpart in the Black Moon clan, also used a whip as her weapon.

In the manga and live action, Venus is shown to wear the chain as a belt when not in use; in the anime she summons it and it is much more magical. It also gets upgraded a few times in the manga.

Sailor Lead Crow, who already looked like a dominatrix to begin with. Later, her boss, Sailor Galaxia, is shown to wield an energy whip in an attack named "Galactica Super String"

Ishtar, another evil version of Venus, albeit from Sailor Moon: Another Story, also uses a whip, though it's just because all the Opposito Senshi reuse the Ayakashi Sisters' attacks in battle

VesVes and Tiger's Eye also carry whips.

The Vamp secretary Kalifa in One Piece wields a spiked whip in her double life as a secret agent.

Dino from Katekyo Hitman Reborn! wields one of these as a mafia boss, but manages to subvert the trope by only being good at doing so when his subordinates are in the direct vicinity. Without them, he manages to hit everyone else but his contender with it.

Now his student, Hibari Kyouya, appears to have taken after him. By wielding two bladed chain whips attached to his tonfas.

Kurama from YuYu Hakusho wields a "Rose Whip," a thorn-covered vine whip metamorphosed from a rose.

Tira Misu (yes, it is a very, very Punny Name) from Sorcerer Hunters wields a whip to great effect in battle, but its most common use is whipping Carrot's monster form into submission. Her older sister Chocolate wields razor wire, but the effect is much the same.

Given a Shout-Out in Slayers, where Lina Inverse (also voiced by Megumi Hayashibara) uses the spell Balus Rod to summon a whip and attacks a monster while shouting "Call me queen!"

Haruki Emishi in Get Backers is known as the "Fresh Blood Joker" for his skill with the flexible-yet-strong-as-steel Loulan Dancing Whip, and how he laughed at his enemies' spraying blood.

BC from Vandread handles a mean whip during a fight with the leader of a space station and when defending against aliens.

In Kaleido Star there's a handsome circus artist named Dio, whose trusty show artifact is his whip. He's often shown throwing roses at the audience and then using the whip to slice them, showering the viewers in petals.

In X, Yuuto Kigai's main weapon is a whip with a sai dagger attached to its end.

Hei in Darker Than Black uses a steel wire as his primary weapon. Not only is he able to choke people to death with it, he can also conduct his electrical discharges through it. Though he usually hurled knife tied to the wire, which is more sensible in regards of both ballistics and conductance.

Aswad member Lumen from Mai-Otome carries a pair of whips that combine into a Double Weapon in their unused form. Rosalie also uses one as her Element.

Voltes V: Ippei Mine has a whip and swings it around in the OP. The belt of the titular Humongous Mecha is in reality two whips.

In Digimon Adventure 02, the Digital Kaiser/Emperor was armed with a riding crop, which he frequently used on his partner (Wormmon) and other mind-controlled minions. It wasn't particularly effective in fighting Takeru/T.K.

In Digimon Tamers, Rio uses an energy whip from his Digivice to reign-in his berserk Cyberdramon. No one else's Digivice has this ability, and it doesn't appear to be triggered by any of his cards.

An episode of Ah! My Goddess had Aoshima sic two thugs armed with whips on Urd. Urd catches the ends, quips "This is how you use a whip!", and punishes them by Dual Wielding their own weapons on the three of them.

Urd also swings a chain around like a whip while on her way to confront Hild in an episode of the second season. Also, Peorth uses her vines as a whip against Keiichi when she tries to help him get over his Cannot Spit It Out problem.

Lucy, from Fairy Tail, attacks by means of stellar spirits, but she has a whip. Strangely, she tends to be clad in black when the whip makes an appearance, and being this Fairy Tail, it has Dominatrix airs.

Dragon Ball Z: A filler episode in the Trunks Saga featured a Sadist Teacher for Gohan who uses a whip to "discipline" his students. The fact that he actually whipped Gohan across the face with enough force to draw blood right in front of Chi-Chi just makes his comeuppance in the form of Destination Defenestration all the more satisfying.

Mahou Sensei Negima! has an odd variation of this with Makie, who's capable doing the whole Indiana Jones swinging bit, picking up and throwing objects (and people)...with a rhythmic gymnastics ribbon. Predictably, when she gets a pactio with Negi, her Artifact is a magical ribbon that also can act like a whip, among other things.

There was also that infamous incident when Haruna traumatizes her friends by drawing a doujin of herself whipping them for not letting her in on The Masquerade sooner. Naturally, she's dressed like a dominatrix.

The warden of the Cassandra prison in Fist of the North Star used dual whips as main weapons. When things got tougher (i.e. seeing that they didn't work on Kenshiro), he pulled out many more of them, concealed in the horns of his helmet. Still, whoever has the least bit of familiarity with the series can see where it all went (especially since he was one of the last enemies before Raoh's proper introduction in the story).

General Cloud Nine in D.Gray-Man and Lulu Bell. The anime adds this conversation.

The Big O. In episode 25 "The War of Paradigm City", Agent 12 of the Union uses a whip several times.

Comic Books

Catwoman is the quintessential comic book example. It's worth noting that the movies and cartoons always show her with a bullwhip, when in the comics, she normally uses a cat o' nine tails (a whip with multiple ends tied to metal balls). It is sometimes explained that she chose the weapon due to its difficulty of use; if someone managed to disarm her in a fight they'd be unlikely to be able to use it against her effectively. It is also worth noting that she is not above using a Groin Attack with it, as Prometheus found out the hard way.

He's since died, but been succeeded by a couple who took both identities as Blacklash and Whiplash. They also took the whip theme and the severely S&M gear themed Blacklash costume and ran with it, being bondage fetishists before becoming villains.

It wasn't her first day. She'd been a superhero for a while; that was just her first team up, and she was inexperienced in fighting threats like that.

Lady Lumiya, who debuted in Marvel Star Wars, used a lightwhip, which was actually a lot cooler than it sounds.

Especially considering she used it to hand Luke Skywalker his ass on a plate in their big showdown. Lumiya and her light-whip made a return in the Legacy of the Force series, and she even wrenched off Luke's mechno-hand in a duel.

Luke stomps her in their next fight by Dual Wielding lightsabers to first destroy her whip then her.

The squid-faced Sith Lord Darth Maleval used a shock-whip in Star Wars: Legacy, making him one of the most badass of Sith in his single, one-shot appearance.

The Sith woman Githany, of the Old Republic era, also utilised a lightwhip quite effectively. There have been a few others, too.

The DCU also had Mr America (a.k.a. the Americommando) who was a master of the bullwhip.

One arc of Sandman Mystery Theatre featured a villain/vigilante called "The Scorpion" who coated the tail of his whip with a scorpion venom which was almost instantly fatal.

In the G.I. Joe: Movie Prequel comic, The Baroness displays a previously unsuspected facility with a bullwhip.

Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash from Empowered. That's only one guy, by the way. Oh, it used to be a team of three dudes, but long story short the one who was previously just "the Lash" had to take over the whole name after a while. One wonders how the other two fought.

The Tarantula, a foe of the Marvel ComicsWestern hero the Phantom Rider, wielded a cat-o-nine-tails as his principal weapon.

In Archie Comics' Sonic the Hedgehog, Lien-da was seen with a whip during the 'Return To Angel Island' arc. Though she mostly used it for flirting, the entire outfit she'd been given for that arc was designed to resemble a dominatrix.

El Hombre in Astro City, who is essentially Batman with the Zorro influence magnified dramatically. His sidekick Bravo wielded the relatively similar bola.

For a single page, Miho uses a long chain-hook in the Sin City tale, Family Values. It hooks into a mobster's eye-sockets and yanks him down the hall.

In Secret Strength Mad-Eye Moody made Harry learn a fire whip spell which the DA promptly insisted on being taught because it "sounded cool." Harry countered with the fact that it took too much time and power to cast and that screwing up while learning to wield it was likely to give you some pretty severe burns.

For her appearance in the Diva Delight costume battle royal in the pro wrestling story, Hello Again, Molly Holly came to the ring dressed as a dominatrix, complete with a whip that she playfully cracked at the announcer's table.

Films — Animated

In the intro for Toy Story 3, Woody is shown to be quite adept with a whip.

The villain Sadachiyo in Lupin III: The Secret of Twilight Gemini uses a whip whether carrying out assassinations or torturing women. At one point, the guy even shreds a boulder Lupin was using for cover, in a matter of seconds!

Films — Live-Action

Indiana Jones uses a bullwhip as one of his signature weapons and tools.

One of the villains of the 1998 film Drive used a whip to nasty effect on the hero's black sidekick Malik Brody during one of the final showdowns, even calling him "boy" as an old-style slave-driver would. When the sidekick turns the tables on him, he tells him off as he delivers a savage beating of his own with the butt of a gun:

Malik Brody: You pulled a whip on me? Are you out of your fucking mind? Let me tell you something — DON'T YOU EVER PULL A WHIP ON A BLACK MAN AGAIN!

Unforgiven, another Clint Eastwood western, also features a whip-related death; that of Ned, William Munny's black friend, at the hands of the antagonist Little Bill, which sets up Munny's final revenge.

From Iron Man 2 we have Ivan Vanko, who wields a pair of Arc-reactor powered whips that have the same functionality as a lightsaber. Because he's a Composite Character of the aforementioned Whiplash and the armored Crimson Dynamo, we have a climactic battle with a suit of armor with even bigger whips.

Deconstructed in Hellraiser: Inferno. A whip with large hooks is used once as a murder weapon, and once to attack. When used for murder, it is used on a bound and helpless victim. When used on a victim who can fight back, the attacker strikes first, inflicting a painful but minor wound, then eats a load of buckshot to the face for his trouble.

Whip Wilson was an imitator of Lash LaRue who had his own series of B-Grade western movies in the late 40s and early 50s.

The titular heroine of Forever Amber uses a horsewhip to attack her husband, who has tried to poison her. A blow from her servant finishes him off.

Drow high priestesses from R. A. Salvatore's Homeland and Sojourn use whips. Six-thonged, living, snake-headed whips that deliver poison when they bite. Compliment them on their Stripperiffic bondage outfits at your peril.

The Yuuzhan Vongs' melee weapon of choice, the amphistaff, has a whip form (in addition to spear, staff, sword, and probably some other ones...). Said form is typically used to disarm, or to get the weapon's head (it's a living snake-like creature) behind an enemy. Slightly better for use as a weapon than a normal whip, since it's venomous.

The amphistaff can be completely stiff for use as a staff or club or completely floppy for use as a whip. Most Vong carry it wrapped around their arm in the floppy state and stiffen it to the stafflike state when ready for combat. Does This Remind You of Anything?

Benvenuti from Eric Flint's Joe's World series favors a whip in combat. It's not very deadly, but combined with the right words, can be terribly demoralizing.

In Redwall, Cluny the Scourge uses his own tail as a whip, mostly to instill fear and deal out punishment, but can be equipped with a poisoned barb to become a very lethal weapon.

Mariel's weapon of choice is a salt-water soaked rope with a knot at the end.

A scene in Farmer Boy, one of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, has a schoolteacher use a bullwhip to successfully defend himself against six boys who made a habit of attacking the teacher.

While it's pretty easy to sympathize with the teacher (the "boys" are at least in their late teens, and students had killed the last teacher who'd worked in that area), the fact that that whip is clearly being used as a weapon in that scene makes it pretty disturbing later on when nine-year-old Almanzo expects to be whipped with it for getting stove polish on the nice parlor wallpaper. We already knew from earlier that Almanzo's father whips his sons with actual whips, but that thing is described as being fifteen feet long with a lead-weighted handle that can kill an ox.

In Isaac Asimov's Galactic Empire books, and especially in The Currents of Space, soldiers employed "neuronic whips", which caused extreme pain to whatever part of the skin they touched.

The noun is used metaphorically. These are actually guns which shoot Agony Beams

In Johnny Mnemonic, the yakuza assassin's thumb detaches to provide the ballast for a monofilament whip housed in his hand. He uses it to battle the razorgirl Molly Millions.

In The Seventh Tower, Milla eventually gets to use a light whip. A homing light whip.

Isabelle Lightwood from The Mortal Instruments, uses a silver-gold whip when she fights demons, one which can somehow cut through flesh and bone. It's partially magical, however, which explains its unusual cutting capacity.

A traditional weapon of the garuda from Perdido Street Station. Yagharek wields a bullwhip to good effect in the closing chapters, despite it not being as well-designed for combat as the ones used in his homeland.

In A Song of Ice and Fire, one of the Dothraki weapons is the whip, and a silver-handled whip is a traditional gift at a Khal's wedding, given to his new bride, though she is expected to refuse and offer them to her new husband. The slaves are whipped by the khalasar, and Viserys ends up on the wrong end of one, being slowly strangled by it at one point. Jhogo, one of Drogo's bloodriders, is particularly skilled with the whip, and inherits Drogo's silver-handled whip when Dany asks him to become her bloodrider after Drogo dies.

One of the storerooms in Willy Wonka's factory is devoted to "whips—all shapes and sizes." When asked about it, Wonka says that they're for making whipped cream. There are several other storerooms, each labeled with equally atrocious puns.

The Kingdom and the Crown: Jesus' introduction in the first book is the cleansing of the temple. The characters head towards the commotion, punctuated by the occasional crack of a whip, where they find Jesus throwing money tables around and using the whip to drive back anyone who approaches.

Narouz carries a bullwhip, demonstrates his effectiveness with it to those he wishes to intimidate, and uses it to kill in Lawrence Durrell's novel Mountolive (one of the Alexandria Quartet).

In Helliconia Winter, Uuundaamp uses a whip to direct the asokins (horned dogs) that pull his sled. He also wields it in self-defense, and to haul open the gate of a kennel to turn several other sledge-drivers' ravenous asokins loose on his pursuers.

Live-Action TV

In Babylon 5, G'Kar is nearly killed by the Centauri when the Emperor orders him whipped. The laser-whip used to punish him delivers a harsher shock with every lash. The Emperor sits and rapidly counts out the lashes to be administered while Lando watches.

On The Borgias, Cesare flogs Micheletto. Miccy doesn't seem to mind, and is in fact, the one to suggest it.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Faith - "This one guy I ran with, he liked me to dress up like a schoolgirl, and take this friggen bullwhip, and I'd be like..."

An episode of How I Met Your Mother had a sub-plot in which Ted was given a whip and a fedora upon becoming a professor. Marshall, the friend who gave it to him, demands they go outside and play with it. One Gilligan Cut later and Marshall is shown holding a bruised jaw, telling Ted, "The whip is not a toy". He is later seen playing with it, however.

In Queen of Swords, the Queen wields as one of her primary weapons along with her rapier.

Red Dwarf references a "holo-whip" on a few occasions, a weapon that apparently hurts both humans and holograms and can be utilized by either.

One is actually shown in the episode "Angels and Demons", wielded by Evil Bondage Rimmer.

Mendol Ikemen: The manager, Sakeo, uses a whip as weapon of choice. And for fetish purposes.

One Saturday Night Live skit was about a fictional show called The Whipmaster, about a cowboy in the Old West who fought with a whip rather than a gun with enough extraordinary skill as to disarm gunslingers, snatch cigars out of peoples mouths, and retrieve objects and saloon girls... feats the regular actor's stand-in was hilariously unable to replicate.

Star Trek's Ferengi were originally armed with electric whips. This was one of the only cool things about them, and since the writers quickly realized these guys would not work as intimidating villains, the whips were dropped.

They Might Be Giants' "Minimum Wage" has a whipcrack sound right after the only lyrics: "Minimum wage...hyah!"

The B-section of the Christmas song "Sleigh Ride" has a whip crack at a few points ("There's a birthday party at the home of Farm—" [whip] "—er Gray…")

Newspaper Comics

Mrs Pruneface from the Dick Tracy, although there was nothing fanservice-y about this grotesque character.

In a much later arc, Tracy's friend and colleague, HPD officer Haku Kou, is depicted as being the technical advisor on a movie being filmed in Tracy's city because of the title character's facility with a blacksnake whip. Kou explains that he became proficient with that weapon (leading to his being hired as the film's technical advisor) in emulation of Chang Apana (see Real Life section below).

Subverted in Stern Pinball's Iron Man, which features Ivan "Whiplash" Vanko as a villain, yet his playfield figure is missing his iconic double whips.

Professional Wrestling

Dutch Mantel used to regularly come to the ring with a whip he called "Shoo-baby"

During his mid-80's feud with Larry Zbyszko (who was doing a martial arts gimmick at the time), Nick Bockwinkel began bringing a whip to the ring to counteract Zbyszko's nunchucks.

AAA Heavyweight Champion El Texano Jr likes to whip his opponents in the nuts with his lasso.

Religion

Tabletop Games

The Clanners in BattleTech use laser guided whips in their single combat duels, and as discipline in basic training.

A weapon in the setting known as the neural whip exists, but it is less a whip and more a fencing foil from hell—its mere touch is agonizing and immediately demands a saving roll versus being knocked unconscious, and repeated use causes permanent stat drain in a game where you technically don't get to level up. Its less damaging sibling (only in that it doesn't cause the stat drain) is the neural lash, which operates on similar principles but is actually a proper whip, albeit one that telescopes back into its handle between strikes. Needless to say, both are illegal to own.

Mina Devlin runs Black River Rails in Deadlands. Given her sadistic streak, it was only a matter of time before she wound up with a rail enforcer like Violet Esperanza. Given her sadistic streak (and her penchant for using her drop-dead looks as a weapon), it was only a matter of time before she started using a weapon designed to cause pain without causing the sweet release of unconsciousness. Given the nature of the Weird West, it was only a matter of time before Violet's whip became a Relic, capable of doing more damage than most rifles...but only when Violet wants it to.

The standard whip is a fairly underpowered weapon. In earlier editions, it delivers a mere 1d2 damage (1 for Large target) and does not belong to any other weapon group. In 3.5, the weapon is Exotic, requiring characters to devote a feat to use it properly, and still does hardly any damage. It is treated as a ranged weapon with a 15' range, meaning that it uses Dexterity rather than Strength and does not threaten. Although they bumped the damage up to 1d3, it is completely incapable of damaging any opponent wearing armour at all. Its main use is for applying trip and disarm attacks at a longer range and by Spellswords to deliver ranged touch attack spells from a greater distance.

In 3.5 Bards, rather oddly, start with proficiency in whip. Given that they only cost a handful of gold and the ability to trip or disarm at range can be quite useful in the right situation, there's no reason why you WOULDN'T pick one up, just in case.

In some versions, a scourge (cat-o'-nine-tails) is essentially the same except its damage isn't quite so pathetic.

The spiked chain, introduced in 3.0, is a far more effective weapon. Though Exotic and dealing a little less damage than most Large melee weapons, it has nearly every special ability a weapon can have and, almost uniquely, threatens all squares out to 10'. A character willing to devote almost all his feats to the task could be very effective with it.

The Balor demon (called a Balrog in earlier editions before the Tolkien estate sued) uses a whip as a weapon.

There are many whip variants introduced in a variety of supplements, including the Drow Lash of Torment (which has broken glass attached to it and hits the user on a miss if the user isn't a Drow) and a perfectly nonmagical Bladed Whip

Though much shorter and less flexible, the flindbar (favored weapon of a species called flinds) works a lot like this trope. It's a nunchaku variant used to disarm opponents.

Warhammer 40,000 has some of the kinkier Dark Eldar units use whip-like weapons, as well as the dominatrix-like Sisters of Battle "Mistress", who has a barbed cat-o-nine-tails in each hand (which she uses to drive around large squads of near-naked penitent young nuns carryingeight-foot-longchainsaw swords...). The Ordo Hereticus, of which the Sisters are a part, also have Arco-Flagellants, brainwashed, tortured penitents with electrified whips implanted directly into their bodies and stimulant injectors to turn them into berzerkers on demand. These are about as far from sexy as it is possible for a whip to get.

Dark Eldar, being, well, Dark Eldar, actually have not one, but several different whip-like weapons. The most common one is the Agoniser, which causes the victim's nervous system to go haywire, burning out their nerves and inflicting horrible pain. Then there's the Electrocorrosive Whip, an electrified whip designed to cause debilitating pain and sap the victim's strength. Dark Eldar Wytches sometimes use Razorflails which are Whip Swords that can switch between sword- and whip-forms at the user's will. Besides these exotic weapons, Dark Eldar Beastmasters often use regular bullwhips to goad their beasts into battle.

As well as Chaos Lords of Slaanesh, whose daemon weapons are whips.

There's also a Slaaneshi psychic power called the Lash of Submission, which creates an immaterial whip that places the target under the control of the user.

Bloodthirster of Khorne often carry whips, but they mainly use them to drive lesser daemons into frenzy or to hit enemies trying to stay out of their melee range (in close combat they rather use enormous daemon-axes.

Some Tyranid creatures have Lash Whips, which like most other Tyranid weapons are in fact separate organisms. In combat they wrap themselves around enemies, reducing their initiative.

Dark Elf beastmasters in Warhammer have barbed whips used for goading War Hydras and other beats. Designed to inflict pain or large thick-skinned monsters, they are also quite deadly against humanoid enemies (although their damage isn't particularly high, they're armour-piercing weapons). Dark Elf characters can equip a magic weapon that is a slightly more powerful version of these whips.

Satyxis Raiders of Cryx and Bloodrunner master tormentors of the Skorne in the Iron Kingdoms setting use bladed whips.

The villainous version of Cinderella in the D20 game Grimm is more than a little Ax-Crazy and has an aversion to being touched due to her years of abuse (she married Humpty Dumpty because he didn't want to... ummm... you know). Now she uses a thorned scourge to torture her sisters and anyone else who bugs her.

In Shadowrun, the most effective melee weapon is the monofilament whip, which delivers a terrific amount of damage at long range and is quite concealable. It's effectively a strand of molecular-width wire with a weight on the end to allow it to be used as a whip. Like much of Shadowrun's world, it's ripped from the works of William Gibson.

Right up until you roll a fumble and whip off your own face. Many characters, both in the in-game flavor text and the novels, remark that using a monowhip in combat is very scary, but also insane.

A normal whip in GURPS does little damage and penetrates armor poorly but is impossible to parry. Monofilament whips do moderate damage, go through armor like it's barely there and are liable to slice your head off.

Video Games

Castlevania. No whip in videogame history is as well known and respected as a weapon as the Vampire Killer.

Brought to the pinnacle of video game perfection in Super Castlevania IV. Simon can whip in any of the eight directions and can control his whip when brandishing it about as realistically as you could in real life.

Parodied in Robot Chicken, where two werewolves mock Simon Belmont for using a whip. He then starts whipping them. While not fatal, it is damn painful, so they take him to Dracula. Dracula similarly mocks him, and receives the same punishment. The werewolves, looking on, wonder "what kind of a sadist uses a whip?" See it here.

For the sake of extra info: The Vampire Killer is generally at its weakest as a normal whip, though the 3D games are exceptions. In the 2D titles, the whip has two power-up stages, both of them chain-based whips with different lengths, and a mace on the end, which makes the whip a far more effective weapon. It also helps that it was created through alchemy to be deadly against the forces of darkness - it's called the Vampire Killer for a reason. As well, the Belmonts can also set the thing on fire and Bloodlines includes the ability to turn it into a lightning whip. Bloody awesome.

Also, it contains the soul of the matriarch of the Belmont clan, Sara Trantoul, who was killed by vampires. Chances are a spoon would have miraculous vampire-killing properties if Sara was in it.

Castlevania: Circle of the Moon shows off an Expy on the form of the Hunter's Whip, which protagonist Nathan Graves wields. There doesn't seem to be anything supernatural about it, though.

In Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, there's one stage where you can choose to play as Princess Leia in the infamous Go-Go Enslavement outfit. (keeping with the movie, it's the level where you fight Jabba the Hutt). Her weapon is a broken chain which she uses as a whip. Through the use of a debug code, you can also play EVERY SIDE SCROLLING STAGE in the game this way.

Battle Arena Toshinden: According to her character profile, Sofia is Russian dominatrix (which explains the outfit she's wearing) and uses a whip as part of her profession, as well as in the ring.

Final Fantasy IV's Rydia wields a whip, but she's not otherwise sultry or vamp-ish. Her use of the whip is probably related to her ability to summon and command magical beasts. It's a crappy weapon, and generally the worst offensive option for her in any fight. Then again, given that she's the party's Black Magician Girl on top of being a Summoner means that "Fight" is usually the last command you should be selecting in the first place, unless you're the kind of player that doesn't use Ethers. Whips have the capability of paralyzing enemies, but still...

And then, in The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, the Blue Dragon enemy has a chance of dropping the Dragon Whisker, a whip with an attack of 110, the chance to cause paralysis, and deals extra damage against dragon-type enemies. This allows Rydia to effectively deal with a good chunk of enemies in the final dungeon, as she deals as much if not more pain than Cecil or Kain.

Izayoi from Final Fantasy IV The After Years equips whips or bows, despite her art depicting her with a dagger. She can still equip ninja swords, but she generally ends up with either of the latter 2 since none of the other ninjas can equip either of those. There's also a set of Queen equipment that includes a whip (which can turn enemies it hits into pigs, aptly enough), it being the only whip that a Red Mage and a rebellious kung fu princess can use and former of which is involved in a whip-based Combination Attack with the above-mentioned ninja, an female assistant to a handsome but somewhat weak king and a Stripperific summoner, aptly called Call Me Queen.

Final Fantasy V has whips as a type of weapon (used by Beastmasters). In the advance port one of them even comes with a Shout-Out to the titular song.

Final Fantasy VIII: Quistiss' default weapon was her whip, though she could supplement it with magic and summons.

Vanille's weapon in Final Fantasy XIII is a binding rod, combining this trope with Magic Wand. The resulting weapon functions somewhat like a fishing rod.

Whips are an invaluable weapon type in Dragon Quest games, having the ability to hit groups of enemies. Usually the strongest whips in the game are capable of hitting all enemies.

In Dragon Quest VIII, one of the weapon types Jessica can wield is a whip, which allows her to attack multiple enemies at once. It's arguably her best weapon choice, especially once she learns the deadly Twin Dragon Lash.

In RuneScape, one of the most powerful melee weapons is a whip called "The Abyssal Whip."

It's a barbed, spiked, linked chain wielded in the style of a whip that has a whip sound effect when it strikes.

Tabuu has one of his own, too; being captured by it often leads to instant death.

Ivy Valentine from the Soul Series has a segmented blade that she uses like a whip, with full dominatrix implications in some of her attacks and victory animations, AND a wonderfully Stripperiffic outfit. A direct manifestation of this trope. Though related, her weapon is another trope altogether

Spike Rosered/Axel the Red from Mega Man X5 uses a whip as his primary weapon.

Bart from Xenogears uses a whip as his primary weapon, and so does his Gear; the Gear's whips are called Heat Rods as a Shout-Out to Gundam.

Rospark from Mega Man ZX Advent has a pair of whip-like vines used both as weapons and as means of locomotion. Thanks to the wonders of A-Trans, the protagonist gets them as well...after recycling him.

In Suikoden, a few characters use whips. Many of them are animal trainers, but one of the deadliest examples is Lucia, a Proud Warrior Race Woman. In the second game, she uses it as a tool of bloody vengeance, doing hundreds of points of damage per turn. In the third game, she returns as the main character's mother. Both times, she's definitely notThe Vamp, despite her weapon choice.

While not an actual weapon in game, Vaida from the seventh Fire Emblem is shown with a whip in her official artwork.

However, enchanted whips are used to promote pegasus knights and wyvern riders.

Lemeza Kosugi uses a whip as his starting weapon in La-Mulana. This is due to the character's basis on Indiana Jones, and the gameplay's basis in Castlevania. (There are two hidden, tricky ways to upgrade the whip to a mace-like weapon, and there is a way to further power it up that involves finding a Castlevania ROM.)

In Phantasy Star Universe, specifically in the Ambition of the Illuminus expansion, whips are a class of weapon available to a minority of classes, those being the primary magic-user and the remaining two, hybrid magic-users. Popular for their ability to inflict Standard Status Effects with every hit. Since classes are independent of gender or race, anyone can Whip It Good in this game.

In Freedom Wars, the Thorn Whip is a standard piece of equipment for Sinners, functioning as a grappling hook for quick movement around the battlefield and dragging large robotic Abductors to the ground. Different Thorns also have properties allowing them to temporarily paralyze Abductors, heal teammates, or erect barriers.

Given the content, it should come as no surprise to the reader that A Dance with Rogues contains a large number of whip-wielding opponents and whips among treasure caches. Especially in the pervert cult temple and in the Drow house

Ōkami has a version of this. Amaterasu can equip rosary as her primary weapon that she uses in a whip-like fashion.

One of Morrigan's more memorable winposes in the Marvel vs. Capcom series has Lilith descending from the sky bound at the wrists while Morrigan changes to a dominatrix outfit, whip at the ready. This was supposedly taken out of the American version, but still shows up sometimes.

Kratos from God of War has magic blades attached by chains to his arms that he uses like whips - in one scene in the second game you even use them to drive some giant stone horses. It's actually a different version of the blades with each game (the first is the Blades of Chaos, the second is the Blades of Athena, and the third game gives you the Blades of Exile).

God Of War III gives you the Claw of Hades, which whip around Kratos and differ from the Blades of Exile.

The Nemesis Whip. Shorter range than the Blades of Exile, but electrified.

In Etrian Odyssey, the Dark Hunter class has the option to use whips. The females in particular like to dress in scant leather outfits, and they all sport skills such as Climax and Ecstasy. They even specialize in tying up enemies and their Dominate skill lets them completely bind and gag an enemy without fail. In Heroes of Lagaard they are a favorite for their ability to instantly kill most enemies, including some bosses, once said enemies are at 55% HP or lower.

And another one like the Fire Emblem example: the Trainer's Whip in Golden Sun: The Lost Age is not a weapon, but a class-changing equip item. The class set that it produces is based around summoning, unsurprisingly.

Being based off of Indiana Jones, the Archaeologist class in NetHack has a whip as their default weapon.

As the game is based on D&D 1st edition, the weapon is fairly underpowered.

In Rumble Roses, one of the weapons is a riding crop. In addition to doing damage, it can humiliate an opponent. While any character can pick it up outside the ring and use it, one of the characters (Mistress Spencer, who is the heel version of Miss Spencer, former goody two shoes school teacher current dominatrix to the point where she's sitting on a SLAVE CLOWN in her entrance) actually STARTS the game holding it. While she's the only one that starts with a weapon, she's not any better at using it than the other characters...and a weapon is almost useless at the beginning stages where the enemy is healthy enough to fight back.

When the Dynasty Warriors characters were redesigned for the sixth game, Diao Chan and Zhen Ji were given whips.

It first showed up in Dynasty Warriors Online. It mixes this with "Chain Pain" for the aptly named "chain whip". An actual martial arts weapon, mainly used for self defense due to it's small folding size.

The aforementioned bonus boss plays a major role in Kingdom Hearts 3D, being a young version of Xehanort from the past, and makes much use of his keyblade whip in his combos, launching waves of energy from it as he swings it.

Wizardry 6, 7, and 8 all feature both bullwhips and cats o nine tails as weapons. The former is a weak extended-range weapon suitable for spellcasters, the latter is a genuinely powerful weapon in its own right - not the equal of the unique, named weapons, but as good as you can get up until that point. Notably, you acquire the first bullwhip in Wizardry 6: Bane of the Cosmic Forge by looting it from the Queen's secret compartment, along with the Studded Leather Bra +2 (yes, it's exactly what it sounds like, and the narrator sputters as he describes it). While the whip is a good replacement for a mage's staff at that early point, the bra, when used on a thief, is the best armour they can get for most of the game.

Luminous Arc 2's Fatima, uses a whip as her weapon of choice when she's not casting Shadow Frost magic.

And so to Inaluna when isn't casting Light Magic or Status Buff. Her whip reasemble more to slave whip though. It can also function as a fan too.

The Supernatural power set in Champions Online has a few powers that utilize a chain as a whip, including grabbing and yanking the victim towards you.

Several enemy mooks use it as well, including the punderfully named Chainganger.

In Mitsumete Knight R, the whip is Linda'sWeapon of Choice. It doesn't help that one of the multiple outfits and armor she can wear is a dominatrix-looking one, and that this specific outfit gives her boosts.

Whips and scourges occasionally turn up in Dwarf Fortress, and function quite realistically; they take the fewest hits to make an opponent pass out from pain, short of critting with a slashing weapon and severing a limb, but their base damage is atrocious and they're useless against armour. Considered something of a Joke Item as a result.

Occasionally verging on Lethal Joke Item or Death of a Thousand Cuts. Dump an unarmored goblin into a room full of whip- and scourge-based weapon traps, and just see how very long it takes them to die, and how much blood they lose before then.

Jack Skellington uses a goo-like whip as his main weapon in The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge. At its base level it does everything you would expect a whip to do. Leveling makes it, in attack chains, form a scythe and flail at the end. It also makes a cyclone when he holds it out and spins himself around.

In Bayonetta, the demon Kulshedra is captured and resurrected as the game's whip weapon, and it even has the ability to grab enemies by holding down the attack button. When playing as Jeanne, this is replaced with Vritri, a green whip to Kulshedra's purple.

In City of Villains, the Demon Summoning powerset uses a hellfire whip for a few attacks.

The demon summoner Desdemona exemplifies this trope, from the blazing whip to the absurdly low-cut leather outfit.

Alex Mercer has the Whipfist, a mutation that turns his arm into a black, flexible and extremely extendable whip-like appendage. If you think that's not cool enough, the most basic attack can slice a human in half. And then there's the secondary attack which singles out a target and can destroy an attack helicopter from up to 30 meters away, even while falling. And after an upgrade, can even be used as an impromptu grappling hook to catch someone from afar. And it has cool consume animations to boot.

The Soldier from Team Fortress 2 can unlock a riding crop as a melee weapon. In addition to killing enemies, albeit with less damage than the standard melee weapon, he can whip his own teammates to give them and himself a temporary speed boost.

Dark Souls feature a whip as a weapon. In its description, it is already said that it is not meant for combat; it not only has slow attack motions, wielding a whip deprives the player of the ability to backstab and parry, for obvious reasons. It can however, be upgraded to fire or lightning weapon, significantly increasing its combat ability, and the whip is also impervious to being parried. There is another weapon called the Notched Whip, but is more of a Whip Sword rather than a true whip.

The Artorias of The Abyss DLC adds the Guardian Tail as a whip. The Guardian in question happens to be a very lethal lightning-spitting manticore. Its scorpion tail, when cut, forms the whip. Yes, you are essentially swinging a poisonous scorpion tail around as a whip.

Sheriff Woody uses his pullstring as a lasso in Toy Story. He never actually hurt anyone with it, though: anything it hit got "tied up" for a few seconds.

The villain Mistral from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance connects four robot arms together to make a very long (roughly twice her height) pole-arm weapon. Since it's made out of robot arms that she can control remotely it can be either a sturdy staff or a flexible whip.

Oddly enough, Forte from Galaxy Angel always carries around a riding crop, despite never using it and is more of The Gunslinger. Being the eldest of the Angel Brigade, she does get to train the younger ones (especially Chitose), but she never, ever uses it. Lampshaded when Noah points out that Forte cannot be the one person she's looking for by the bad way she swings her riding crop.

The move Vine Whip is a grass-type smacking its opponent with...guess.

In Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!, Nisha's melee weapon is a bullwhip, which fits her character as both a cowgirl and a Combat Sadomasochist. It has a longer range than other characters' melee attacks yet does slightly less damage. With certain skills, she can eventually steal ammo from enemies and even unleash a lightning bolt just by cracking her whip.

Visual Novels

Maji De Watashi Ni Koi Shinasai has class 2F's homeroom teacher, Umeko, who carries a whip, and can use it without hesitation for disciplinary purposes. In her own and in Yukie's routes, she demonstrates just how good she is with it.

Franziska von Karma in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney constantly carries a whip, which she uses on nearly everyone she meets. Her favorite victims are Phoenix and Gumshoe — she seems to consider it almost affectionate, by the end, never mind that that thing hurts — only eight-year-old Pearl Fey (which probably would have killed any possible sympathy for her,) paralyzed-from-the-waist-down Acro, middle-aged (and not the picture of health) Sister Bikini, Godot, who simply shamed her into compliance, Detective Badd (who swayed out of the way) and Shi-Long Lang (who caught the whip when Frannie tried to use it on him) manage to escape unscathed. Also notable in that she completely averts a Stripperiffic outfit, even to the point of constantly wearing gloves (at least while on the job).

Act Five gives us the trollAradia Megido, who had a whip in her room, and apparently looked up to Troll!Indiana Jones. Though her powerful telekinesis obviates it's use as a weapon, she does perform the grappling, swinging acrobatics with it while investigating a ruin.

Brunhilda in The KA Mics likes whips, but she's a danger to everyone around her when she starts wielding one.

In The Legend of Korra, the metalbending police of Republic City use metallic whips as their primary weapon. Chief Lin Bei Fong, as the daughter of Toph (who created this technique), is particularly skilled with them.

In The Boondocks Grandpa Freeman can wield a belt with incomparable skill. Apparently beating one's grandson with a weapon enough times allows you to develop enough skill to disarm an angry pimp.

A Beavis And Butthead Christmas special had a segment where the two reply to viewer mail - Butt-head is dressed as Santa in a sleigh, and Beavis is up front in a reindeer costume and harness, with a bit in his mouth. Butt-head doesn't spare the whip. Pretty disturbing stuff.

In Dragon Booster energy-whips became common weapons over the course of the series, along with various forms of staffs. The energy whip's main difference form a normal whip was that it had a node on the end that could attach to a target to drain their mag energy. The main whip-user in the series was Anti-VillainEnsemble Dark Horse Moordryd Payyn.

Sometimes it crossed into mild horror when a person was caught between two or more energy whips at once. And the pained yells anyone made when their energy started draining.

In The Simpsons Spin-off Showcase, the family sings about candy. Bart, Maggie, and "Lisa" sing to "The Peppermint Twist" and Jasper tries "The Lollipop Song". Smithers then uses a licorice whip for the Devo song.

The weapon of choice for Valentina, the leader of Green Fist, in the Generator Rex episode "Outpost".

Young Justice: Whisper wields a pair of laser whips against Superboy and the Forever People in "Disordered".

In Filipino Martial Arts, a whip in the hands of a skilled user can be incredibly dangerous. Especially when used to blind an enemy.

There's a style of Eskrima, a Dual Wielding based martial art, that involves a whip and dagger.

That "crack" sound? That's the end of the whip breaking the sound barrier. So yeah, it's gonna hurt if you get hit with that.

In fact, a whip can strip off several layers of skin when it hits. The cat o' nine tails often took a long time to recover from and left permanent scars. You can die from cat o' nine tails if the whipper isn't careful, and permanent injury is also a possibility. Whipping is traditionally done on the back because it's perfectly possible to whip a person's belly open.

Whipping is also traditionally done on the back, since it's the ONLY place that it can be done that won't potentially cripple someone. Whipping someone in the face can potentially blind them. Whipping the legs can sever tendons, which can lame the victim. If someone hits you on the hand with a whip, you can very easily lose the use of that hand... permanently. A blow to the neck can either sever a major vein or artery, or just crush your larynx.

Some Asian (especially Chinese) Martial Arts also call a "whip" another weapon. It's a long chain with a bigger iron chunk on the end (usually also with a sharp tip or edge). It's used by spinning the chain around you and attacking by extending the reach and hitting with the chunk on the end. Because it travels really fast, the impact is quite notable and can deliver lot of damage when used against a squishy human. It's not a very elegant weapon and can be hard to use, but it does create some space around you nobody would like to enter without some serious armor. It's small, easily concealed and awesome.

A whip is dangerous in untrained hands, too. Using it to merely cause superficial pain and not maim isn't as easy as it sounds - ask anyone involved in BDSM.

This is the main reason bullwhips are actually very rare in BDSM, that and the fact that they force you to stand a good distance away from the action.

There are many preferred alternatives, but everyone wants at least one whip and to learn to use it — the cracking factor is perhaps the greatest lure for both submissives and dominants. In organized communities, the danger is emphasized but the means of learning to use them safely is provided, so more members do become accustomed to using them. People who learn on their own don't get that opportunity, tend to either cause real damage or shy away from them because of that potential.

Jordan Schlansky, one of Conan O'Brien's employees, is apparently an expert with the bullwhip.

Inuit artist Simon Tookome is proficient with a dog whip, to the point that he used to whip cigarettes in half from almost 15 meters away... while the cigarette was in someone's mouth. He has also used his whip as a weapon to hunt caribou and, on one occasion, a wolf.

Michelle Pfeiffer, who played Catwoman in Batman Returns, was said to be a natural with a whip... which just added to the sexy factor for the already sexy actress. According to the "making of" doc that aired before the movie's release, she pulled off the "whip-the-heads-off-five-mannequins" stunt on her first try. Scary. Hot. Scary-Hot.

Just to put that in perspective, the professional whip master who was on-set to teach her to use the thing pointed out that he would have been hard-pressed to demonstrate that level of accuracy.

The 1925 swashbucklerDon Q Son of Zorro Had some of the best whip stunts ever on film and the star Douglas Fairbanks Sr. did every one of them himself.

Evidence shows that some Sauropods - mainly, the Diplodocids - had tails (tapering to the end) that could and likely were used as whips; the crack from such a whip would have a noise level of over 200 decibels - that's like a cannon going off!

For reference, sound at 200 decibels is loud enough to kill a human.

Anthony De Longis. Self taught whip master (inspired to learn how to use it after seeing the above-mentioned Douglas Fairbanks in Don Q Son of Zorro), Anthony developed a practical fighting style with the whip; he uses the length to trip, disarm, and ensnare his opponent and then uses the handle as a bludgeoning weapon. He boasts that he feels confident using the whip against an opponent armed with anything short of a firearm. He was the one responsible for training Michelle Pfeiffer for her Catwoman role in Batman Returns and Harrison Ford for Indiana Jones.

Contrary to popular belief bullwhips or any other style of whips were not used to hit the animals they were named for. The whip would just be cracked near the animal to get it to moving. Oxen, horses, bulls, etc were all too valuable to risk serious injury by cutting them with a whip just to get them to move from one place to another. Horses are also exercised this way. The actual device used was a goad or prick, which was a pointy stick which you'd stick the beast with, hence the English idiom for useless, painful defiance, "to kick against the prick;" animals which tried kicking the pricks would hurt themselves further for no gain.

The stocks of such tools were sometimes designed so they could be used to prod the animal into moving, however.

Lightweight whips are also used to direct sled dogs, and occasionally to break up fights between them.

Chang Apana, the real life detective who inspired the creation of Charlie Chan, always carried a bullwhip instead of a gun. This didn't hinder his police work as he was once able to arrest over forty illegal gamblers at once on his own.

The sjaemboek or sjambok whip is considered pretty much synonymous with the old South Africa and consists of ten metres of rhinoceros hide rolled and coiled into a tapered cylindrical form between three and five feet long. It is derived from an Indonesian weapon used for slave management and arrived in Africa with Arab slavers. here, white settlers saw its potential and took the weapon up, adding their own refinements. It became synonymous with police riot control and is still used for this purpose by today's South African police force, albeit with a more ecologically friendly plastic version. The Indian lathi is a relative and while an imperial British hangover, is still used today by Indian police for public order purposes.

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